GECKO ON WALL STREET-The SOLUTION

The Gecko's of Wall Street should Pay First BEFORE Congress does any bail-out

Before any Congressional bail-out, something must first take place... not after, BEFORE.

All those responsible for designing and implementing the incentive schemes for sales of Sub Prime Mortgages and for creating an environment for the wholesale dumping of loan packages against securities that did not support value or capacity to repay on default should re-pay all bonuses into the proposed USTreasury Dept.'s Liquidity Bail-OutFund, IMMEDIATELY... I mean all bonuses and profits derived from them post bonus payment.

All the culprits assets should be immediatly frozen no matter where in the world they have secreted their greedy gains away and be re-directed to the Liquidity Fund... hey who knows there might even be surplus that can be directed into health care, education, sustainable transport and greenhouse gas mitigation ...

Oh and in terms of an equitable distribution of liability and tracking the schemes they put in place to create this mess, so they could run away smiling and expect the Feds to prop them up...

(The 700Billion dollars they are calling for now is an obscene abuse of pot calling kettle black.. they are crying (sniff) "we stuffed up so help us keep going so we can keep doing what we have always done, been gready and made people suffer".... NO enough is enough....take the money back from the burrows of the Geckos and their pals, so go after it, get it back)... Well, in this day of electronic records and data storage, all transactions in the past 10 years are trackable, right back to the scheme designers... and thus it is easy peasy to allocate the proportionate liability to those who most benefited and ran...(away leaving the bomb craters)

Congress, first, give the US Federal Justice Department and the FBI some nifty delving work they can get their teeth into...

Go to it Capital Hill, before they spend it all on girls, resorts and cheap thrills in defence contract purchases for foreign governments... its not too late... and then only then, should Congess and other governments around the world think (slowly) about a bail-out...

The greedy have had their day, just like carnivorous practices of big busines's persuit for massive heyday corporate profits and the persuit of executive salary bonuses for failure have had their day...

Congress...don't let the tail pullers wag your body...get on with it and have the guts to go for the creators of this mess NOW not after....their (ummm OUR) money is sitting in their banks now, take it back before you even think about giving them any more!!!

Je suis un radiodiffuseur

...finally... the YarraBUG Radio Show hits the airways...





last Monday at 10am six stalwart bike buddies occupied Studio 1 at 3CR Community Radio in Melbourne and flicked the switch to commence broadcasting a weekly offering to give the cyclist in you a voice in the media maelstrom.



PIC. 1 The Broadcast team from YarraBUG LtoR: Emma, Rob, Val, Steve, Chris & Sonya

The YarraBUG Show is a production of Yarra Bicycle User's Group, with assistance from Yarra City Council's Community Development Grants programme.

YarraBUG's radio program intends to promotes urban cycling as a viable means of transport, provide support to campaigns to improve cycling conditions and awareness; promotes Yarra's cycling conditions, demystifies cycling technology and helps to reveal the diversity of cyclists from children to commuters to lobbyists.

In short, the YarraBUG radio program will encourage people to join in the sheer fun of bicycle riding and sustainable transport.


The show is not only for cyclists, as we'd also love non-cyclists to be in the audience!
I would like to thank the the City of Yarra for the assistance given to YarraBUG via their Community Grants Program to fund the show.

We would also like to thank 3CR Community Radio for their strong support to get the show on air and to 3CR's hardworking staff, especially Elanor, Nicole, Leanne, Bree and Juliet.

YarraBUG is based in the Melbourne inner suburbs of Abbotsford, Alphington, Burnley, Carlton North, Clifton Hill, Cremorne, Collingwood, Fairfield, Fitzroy, Fitzroy North, Princes Hill and Richmond.



YarraBUG advocates on behalf of cyclists for improved cycling conditions with organisations, such as City of Yarra, VicRoads, Bicycle Victoria and many other groups.


YarraBUG is particularly interested in hearing from cyclists who may not be residents of Yarra but who commute daily through the area.

Both cyclists and residents local knowledge, resources and skills are important in creating
awareness and a safe cycling environment in Yarra.

A Bicycle User Group (BUG) is a community based organisation set up by cyclists.


There are a number of different sort of BUGS, such as those defined by a geographical area or workplace or by place of education eg University/TAFE College.


The role of BUGs can be to provide a forum for cyclists to meet and discuss local bicycle issues, work with local government to improve cycling conditions, promote all types of cycling,
assist others to start cycling and arrange and participate in social rides.
YarraBUG program presenters are Emma, Rob, Sonya, Steve, Val and Chris
Yarra Bicycle Users Group: Mondays, 10 - 10.30pm on 3CR Community Radio

and streaming LIVE on the web at http://www.3cr.or.au/ and on the radio at 855AM in Melbourne.

Tune in, , we would love to hear your suggestions for content and if you have material fort us send us contributions through YarraBUG


If you wish to help keep us on air, you can donate, sponsor or subscribe to 3CR and support our show, call 3CR during business hours at (+61) (0)3 9419-0377 they will happily accept your subcription and earmark donations and sponsorship to our show's budget... we are non-profit and rely on your support to stay on the air for you- so call 3CR and be a supporter, they will then send out all the great station show bag materials to you.

Safe cycling, happy listening and remember..LIFE IS BETTER ON A BICYCLE

350.org: Because the world needs to know

350.org VIEW VIDEO

The solution is not more efficient cars for personal mobility, its using bicycles, walking and being less arrogant about "business as usual"- The world has to do things differently if we are to survive. 350 is a reachable and sustainable number of parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Do something about getting there and below while you can...stop driving a car, walk more, ride a bicycle to the shops or work or school, turn off your lights at home, use less heat, wear more clothes, grow your own vegetables and fruit, because if we rely on big business and governments to do it they won't... they want your money at the expense of this planet... so tell them... 350 is the only way out...leave it too long and we are all stuffed !

A Car Free World

Have we really sat down and weighed the damage we humans do with cars over the benefits they have brought?

I challenge anyone to show that mankind is better off because we have a 2 tonne lump of steel in our driveway for personal mobility and convenience.

Most trips we do with these dinosaurs can be done with a better outcome for us and our planet by alternative sustainable means ( just think if next time Joe Suburban wants a chocolate chip ice cream Joe actually did a walk to the shop to get it instead of driving the 300-500m). hey!! even ride to work, Joe's sizable butt may disappear, the Joe fuel bill will drop to near zero and Joe's time will be better spent getting healthy instead of fat in a 4 wheeled cocoon stuck in a polluting gridlocked line of metal coffins there and back.

Better still if Joe sold thecar/s Joe would save a fortune in household running costs, use the money for a great holiday, some continuing education for Joe's self or partner, even donate some of it to educate a child in poverty or even plan a better retirement plan... look at what Joe pays each year in car registration and insurances, plus fuels and repairs. In Australia that is about $250 per week for the average family car according to Choice. Can we really afford to keep up this madness... I said here that business as usual can't go on...

Now what do we do about it?

OK in Portland Oregon at the moment is the Car free Cities Conference, details are here.

This is part of the activity of the World Car Free Network.

They have been telling us for years that motors cars as personal mobility tools are absurd and there are better alternatives.

On their resources page are heaps of links to research papers on point. I ask you do yourself a favour and have a look.

Some of the choicer items I reproduce below, as I know some of you may not want to follow the links just now... but they are too important to ignore.

Here we go:

American Ground Transport
by Bradford C. Snell, 1974
This proposal for restructuring the automobile, truck, bus and rail industries stemming from the original 1974 U.S. Government Report, looks at social consequences of monopoly. It shows that excessive economic concentration can restructure society for corporate ends. As an illustration, it describes how General Motors, Ford and Chrysler reshaped American ground transportation to serve corporate wants instead of social needs. The study concludes with a discussion of feasibility and a review of alternative means of implementation. It suggests, for instance, that reorganization into smaller, independently competing units is feasible for at least two reasons: America's ground vehicle industries performed better when they were independent and less concentrated; and the more advanced transport industries of Europe and Japan are largely organized in this fashion. (LINK to ENG HTML)

Freesources
compiled byWorld Carfree Network's International Coordination Centre

ON CARFREE DEVELOPMENT
Car-Free Development
(Module 3e of the "Sourcebook for Policy-Makers in Developing Cities," by Lloyd Wright, GTZ, 2005)
More than 170 pages covering a range of issues around car-free development, including an overview of worldwide car-free activities (e.g. car-free days, car-free housing, large-scale pedestrianisation), an outline of project implementation processes and a listing of car-free resources, including information resources and funding opportunities. This document has been developed under GTZ's Sustainable Urban Transport Project and is part of the "Sustainable Urban Transport Sourcebook for Policymakers in Developing Cities." This and all other - at present - 22 modules of the Sourcebook are available from the GTZ SUTP project website at http://www.sutp.org/ after a quick registration process.[PDF, 16MB]

Car-Free Housing in European Cities
(A Survey of Sustainable Residential Development Projects, by Jan Scheurer, ISTP, 2000
This research on carfree and car-lite housing development was part of a PhD project investigating the contribution urban ecology, community and mobility management innovations in residential neighbourhoods can make towards the sustainable transformation of our cities. The paper looks at projects in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Vienna, Freiburg and Cologne.[HTML, external link]

HOW-TO GUIDES
Action Ideas
by World Carfree Network
Originally compiled as a list of suggested actions for World Carfree Day 2000, this list includes many suggestions which are easily and readily adaptable for anyone who wants to fight car culture. Ranging from activist to family-fun oriented, with ideas for those working alone or in groups, this list remains a great resource and a compilation of some of the best actions we have yeat heard of as well as the newest suggestions.[English - HTML]
An Activist's Guide to Exploiting the Media
by George Monbiot
The only chance we have of reaching people who haven't yet heard what we've got to say is through the media. Whether we use the media or not, our opponents will, says the author of this witty and useful booklet. He then briefly presents the media people and their life problems, and sums up our advantages. In four lessons he teaches you how to invite the press to your actions, how to organise the events so they can be media-covered, how to give interviews and what to do after you've done all this. In one word, a handy step-by-step manual that will turn you into a media star practically overnight![English - HTML]

The Bluffer's Guide to Conference Organising
by Car Busters & Tinerii Prieteni ai Naturii, 2000
Culled from our experiences in organising Towards Car Free Cities II, held in Romania, April 2000. Includes information on how to chose a venue, get payment, organise actions and much, much more.[English - HTML]

Depaving the World
by Richard Register
A cute little how-to for those of us who feel strong enough in the muscles department. Register prompts us not to waste time anymore and do what the road builders always fail to do - to depave what doesn't have to be paved. Treating small depaving projects, medium-sized projects and depaving for the ambitious separately, he gives a concise lesson on how to actually do the hard work, where to get the tools and where to haul all the black shite you dig out. Marvellous for activists who are not afraid to put on a fake 'Public Works' costume and dig for the 'black gold' that's buried in every street! "Start small, think big. Think it through, then swing that pick."[English - HTML]

Pour en finir avec la société de l'automobile
by Marcel Robert, Carfree France, September 2005
"Marcel Robert nous montre que le choix de vivre sans voiture peut e^tre fait aussi bien au niveau collectif qu’individuel. Ces choix deviennent urgents au fur et a` mesure que nous mesurons les conséquences de nos modes de vie sur notre environnement. La question n’est plus de savoir si ces choix doivent e^tre pris, mais quand nous aurons enfin le courage de les prendre."The book is also available on-line at Carfree France. [French - PDF, 0.8MB]

Road Raging: Top Tips for Wrecking Roadbuilding
by Road Alert!, March 1997
The out-of-print road fighter’s bible, with 17 chapters filled with solid, practical information on everything from writing press releases and organising affinity groups to building tree camps and digging tunnels. Written by Road Alert in 1997. This text version lacks the valuable diagrams that accompany the tripod and tree camp sections.The book is also available on-line at http://www.eco-action.org/rr/. [English - HTML]

Kathimerini,

an Athens-based English-language newspaper.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_1657623_24/04/2004_42096
-->

THOUGHT PIECES

The Automobile and Décroissance
by Denis Cheynet
Although they have been revealed many times over, the misdeeds of the automobile are never truly heard and absorbed, and their exposure is stifled by an ideology that absolutely does not want to hear about them. In a world that professes to be rational and logical, the car is the most emotional and the most aberrant tool there is. Automobile growth cannot be sustained in the long-term and is also not even feasible in the present, due to the fact that only a privileged minority of humankind benefits from its economic development. If we would like that life be possible on Earth in the decades to come, our only solution is to thus abandon this scourge. At the same time, we must put into question, in a deep and radical manner, the causes which have made the car ideology dominant in industrialized countries. The elimination of the automobile should be effected by reducing our consumption of materials and natural resources, reducing the transportation flow, and a re-evaluation of our goals.

[English - HTML]

AUTOSTOP
by Ivan Illich and Jean Robert, 1992
Based on quite accurate observation of the damaging impacts of current transportation and with regard to the historical development of the transportation industry, this study proposes a new way of using private cars. Every car with a free seat must stop when asked. A law restricts licenses to drivers who produce passenger-miles and earn income by doing so. Everyone who is not a driver will be chauffeured, and all drivers are available as chauffeurs. Can a simple judicial judgment turn the way we now think about economic "goods" topsy turvy? Without any technical innovation, can a society transform its social and physical environment? Can a small change in the character of transportation lead to a moral reevaluation of place?[English - HTML][Deutsch - HTML]

Car Culture and the Landscape of Subtraction
by Philip Goff, 199?
A little frightening piece of writing to remind us that what used to belong to the public to enjoy has turned into car roadways. Hand in hand with the auto industry, modernist urban planners and architects, dehumanised traffic engineers, and demagogue developers are seen guilty for this negative development. Many of humanity's most pressing problems can be traced to the overuse of automobiles, and unchecked suburban development. Until something in human behaviour is curbed, our decadent lifestyle will continue to decimate communities and cities, and precipitate the ongoing destruction of the natural world.[English - HTML]

Dirty from Cradle to Grave
by John Whitelegg, 1993
Only 40 percent of an average car's air pollution is emitted during the car's "driving" life stage. The other 60 percent results from other life stages: the extraction of raw materials, the transport of raw materials, the production of the car, and the disposal of the car. Cars emit 56 percent of their pollution before they ever hit the road, and 4 percent after they are retired. Thus efforts to decrease air pollution by getting "old, polluting" cars off the road to only replace them with new, "cleaner" cars are misguided - as such efforts have focused on pollution emitted solely during the driving stage and thus have missed 60 percent of the problem. We advocate an end to the production of new cars, an end to road building, and also to take existing cars off the roads in favor of walking, bicycling, and tram and train use.[English - RTF, 4KB]

The Elephant in the Bedroom
by Stanley I. Hart and Alvin L. Spivak, 1992
The Elephant in the Bedroom (The one thing we must do to save the earth) is a book on-line. It describes "the condition of society and the economy as affected by our dependence on the automobile. Dependence created by heavy subsidies: parking, operating space, costs to local government."[English - HTML]

Energy And Equity
by Ivan Illich, 1974
Ivan Illich’s brilliant, classic, mind-blowing essay argues (among other things) that high speed is the critical factor that makes transportation socially destructive, that we have become dangerously overpowered by our technology. He calls for a society based around low-speed transport, having found that, at speeds faster than 15 mph, equity declines, the scarcity of both time and space increases, and the human and natural environment are degraded. Illich thus finds a contradiction implicit in the joint pursuit of equity and industrial growth.[English - HTML]

Hypermobility
by John Adams, 2000
Mobility is liberating and empowering, Adams argues. But you can have too much of a good thing. Adams maintains that society will be more dispersed, polarised and crime-ridden, as well as less democratic. People will become fatter and less fit, the world will be more dangerous for those not in cars and anonymous, less culturally varied and convivial. He discusses why the society is, and increasingly will be, hypermobile. He sees the primary reason for this in the politicians not asking people the right question. Instead of presenting people with the real consequences of moving too much, they keep on pretending that there are no such consequences. Only when the right questions are asked, the right answers will be found.

[English - HTML][English - RTF][Francais - HTML][Francais - RTF][Italiano - HTML][Italiano - RTF][Espanol - HTML] [Espanol - RTF]

The Importance of the Car to the Modern Economy
by Anonymous M11 (UK) campaigner, 1994
A critique of the automobile as a part of a larger class-conscious critique of capitalism. It dissects “Fordism,” which raised labour productivity through assembly-line-based industrial production methods and provided the basis for mass consumption. Addresses the freedom of movement introduced by car ownership as a false freedom, a formal freedom, a representation of freedom which becomes a necessity that reduces the freedom of others. Also looks at the contribution of the automobile to social alienation and powerlessness.[English - RTF]

Motorism
by Daniel James, 2000
This short article explains why so many people spend so much time of their lives driving. It identifies the driving forces behind mass motorism as different forms of dictatorship and political propaganda, be it Hitler's fascism, Stalinism, Thatcherism, or Fordism. The car in James' view is a device of mass obedience, and motorism is an ideology rather than an individual's choice. If we recognise this, James argues, we are in a position to discard it.[English - RTF][English - HTML]

The Myth of the Efficient Car
by Prof. Frank Fisher, Director of the Graduate School of Environmental Science at the University of Monash, Australia, 1997
This article, originally published in Engineering World (Feb/Mar 1997), takes a holistic look at the car to reveal it as one of the greatest failings of the economic rationalists governing our society. In terms of energy, time and money, it is too great an inefficiency to perpetuate.[English - RTF][English - HTML]

Social Ideology of the Motorcar
by André Gorz, 1973
"Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don't have one. That is how in both conception and original purpose the car is a luxury good. And the essence of luxury is that it cannot be democratised. If everyone can have luxury, no one gets any advantages from it. On the contrary, everyone diddles, cheats, and frustrates everyone else, and is diddled, cheated, and frustrated in return."[English - RTF][English - HTML][Francais - RTF][Francais - HTML][Italiano - RTF][Italiano - HTML][Espanol - RTF][Espanol - HTML]

Time Pollution
by John Whitelegg, 1994
Although time-savings provide the principal economic justification for new road schemes, the expansion of the road network and the increase in traffic does not seem to have given people more free time. This is because pedestrian time is not evaluated, because cars are deceptively time-consuming, and because people tend to use what time savings they do gain to travel farther.[English - RTF][Enlish, HTML]

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
The Secret History of Lead
by Jamie Lincoln Kitman, 2000
New York lawyer and writer, in this 24-page expose which appeared in The Nation (March 20, 2000), documents how some of the world's largest corporations -- General Motors, Du Pont and Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon-Mobil) -- got together and put lead, a known poison, into gasoline, for profit. They steadfastly denied the environmental and health effects; covered up, suppressed, fought and unfairly maligned the safer, competing fuel additives; overstated the benefits of lead as an "anti-knocking" agent; funded, underwrote and controlled all scientific research on lead for more than four decades; and threatened and defamed independent scientists who would eventually debunk the companies' pro-lead views.[English - RTF][English - HTML]

Taken For A Ride

A good Discussion and Study Guide to accompany the documentary about the destruction of public transport and rise of the automobile in the United States.

STUDIES & REPORTS
Evidence on the Effects of Road Capacity Reduction on Traffic Levels
by Phil Goodwin et al., 1998
In most locations, road capacity will not be increased sufficiently to provide for unrestrained growth in car use. For this reason, there will be increasing pressure to ensure that the best possible use is made of existing road capacity. In addition, greater attention is being focused on the role of road capacity in policies intended to reduce traffic growth, and, in some locations, to reduce the present amount of traffic. Reallocation of a proportion of road capacity - either to favoured classes of vehicle traffic, or to non-vehicle use - is therefore of major policy interest. This summary report of a large empirical study reviews a number of cases of road capacity reduction, and comes to a conclusion that measures which reduce or reallocate road capacity, when well-designed and favoured by strong reasons of policy, need not automatically be rejected for fear that they will inevitably cause unacceptable congestion.[English - RTF][HTML]

Measuring Transportation Traffic, Mobility and Accessibility
By Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2005
This article compares three approaches to measuring transportation system performance and discusses their effects on planning decisions. Traffic-based measurements (such as vehicle trips, traffic speed and roadway level of service) evaluate motor vehicle movement. Mobility-based measurements (such as person-miles, door-to-door traffic times and ton-miles) evaluate person and freight movement. Accessibility-based measurements (such as person-trips and generalized travel costs) evaluate the ability of people and businesses to reach desired goods, services and activities. Accessibility is the ultimate goal of most transportation and so is the best approach to use.[English - PDF]
The Ten Myths of Automobile Dependence
By Peter Newman & Jeff Kenworthy, World Transport Policy & Practice, Volume 6, Number 1 (2000)
The myths about automobile dependence are analysed and dismissed as no longer having the inevitability they once had. The myths relate to wealth, climate, space, age, health and social problems, rural life styles, the road lobby, land developers, traffic engineering and town planning praxis. Only the tenth one seems to continue to have an inevitability due to entrenched practices which should now be updated and replaced.[English - PDF]

FACT SHEETS & STATISTICS
Pollution Issues
Thomson Group
This website contains articles on various pollution-related issues, including automobiles. A decent source of facts and figures.Website (English)
Statistics
by World Carfree Network
Statistics, statistics. A few of the facts and figures that can help you get your message across to the audience, stun and amaze your opponents and shock the uninitiated.[English - HTML]
Transport and the Economy: The Myths and the Facts
European Federation for Transport and Environment, 2001
T&E's excellent booklet takes on ten myths about road building. Should be slipped under the doorsteps of any politicians who thinks that road building helps economic growth.[PDF, 2.6MB][PDF, no pictures, 295KB]All T&E reports

GRAPHICS AND PHOTOS

Carbusters Graphics Book
The Carbusters Graphics Book is now online, bringing together some of the best transport-related illustration. These images are available for use by local groups, for any non-profit use! If you also have some graphics to share, please send them to info@carbusters.org.Browse pictures

GO TO IT JOE!... You won't be alone, but if the Joe's of this world don't start using cars less ... we are doomed, sooner rather than later... Do It Now Joe, you owe your kids kids, if they survive long enough to make it!

The Cost of Climate Change

What We’ll Pay if Global Warming Continues Unchecked

The cost of inaction on climate change is clearly defined in a report commissioned by Natural Resources Defense Council (The NRDC). Based on modelling of the findings of the 2006 Stern Report this outline clearly is a wake up call if you aren't already wide awake.

Although it shows outcomes for the USA, it is alarmingly frank enough for any reader to see the consequences (for the whole planet) of ignorance and inaction and a "business as usual attitude".

Any business or government which ignores this report is guilty of gross incompetence and would (I will go so far as to say) be committing not only a crime against humanity, but a crime of wholesale criminal activity , a crime of the most perverse and rapacious kind against our world, this planet Earth.

This is more than an inconvenient truth , it is reinforcement in a graphic and scarey way which means our children will have a very different Earth on which many will struggle to survive.

Alarmist isnt the word, facing the truth is more like it, owning up to what we have allowed and continue to allow.

Act now, tell your politicians and business connections to wake up to themselves, tell your friends we humans can't continue with business as usual, we have to find a new way to survive on this Planet or get off it... if we dont it will kick us off!

Did you know that rising sea levels places more ocean weight on magma chambers beneath oceans and forces volcanoes into action, continents to move and the earth to rip apart, yes the Earth is fighting back at us, at our climate change inaction.

The Earth is responding as a single, integrated system to climate change driven by human activities. Global warming is not just a matter of warmer weather, more floods or stronger hurricanes, its a wake-up call. It may be no coincidence that one outcome of increased volcanic activity is likely to be a period of falling temperatures, as a veil of volcanic dust and gas reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. Maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something. It really would be worth listening before it is too late.

The next great extinction will include human kind. It's within our capability to stop it in our lifetime, we can act to allow human kind a longer period of existence on this planet Earth than the short one we have mapped out for ourselves. After 4.5billion years of slow change on Earth, through the planet slowly becoming habitable and our lifeforms building to sophisticated and thinking, reasoning beings, we now have a situation where the dominant thinker on this planet is responsible for its imminent destruction as a biosphere that will sustain life as we know it.

We are at the stage where Modern Humans and their Ancestral forebears who have for the last 3 Million or so years enjoyed an oasis in a desert of Space's emptiness, rock and gases, but we have transformed this gem in the last 100 years into a doomed dying ecosystem.

Read this report, and act... you owe it to yourself and your children and hopefully if they live to survive The Climate Change debacle... so will their children and beyond for eons to come.

Don't be part of the problem anymore, be a catalyst for change and a solution

Can I Ride it to School Mom ?

Oh so spot on,

many thanks to Rick Smith and his "Yahuda Moon & The Kickstand Cyclery" here for this inciteful statement.

Mom's you don't need to use big 4WDs to get your kids to school, grab a bike and ride with them, teach them, remember the acronym HEARTS (for Healthy Excercise and Activity, Ride to School.

Plain of Jars

THE MYSTERIOUS PLAIN OF JARS - LAOS PDR

View YouTube Video here

If you get the chance to travel to Asia and want to contribute to a nation recover from its journey in this world's (human-driven wish to bring change, through violence, & agressive) self interests of others, please visit the Plain of Jars in Laos PDR.

The video gives an idea of the pain the locals have suffered through war and being the most heavily bombed place on earth. With all that torment, the Plain of Jars is there to reveal one of the greatest mysteries of mankind's existence on this planet. Scattered across the plain are thousands of huge urn like vessels, believed to be around 2,000 years old.
Why they are there is an ongoing mystery and we are in awe of their size and what their purpose was. Many scholars believe they may have been used for storage of food, water and even brewing "lao-lao" a rice wine.

UNESCO is undertaking studies with Laotian scholars and visiting archaeologists. The work is both huge in scale and massive in mystery.

Large lids have been found near some to add to this view, many have human remains and were possibly used for burial urns, or perhaps adapted to that purpose.
The Plain of Jars is a must visit, it has 136 archaeological sites and it has been open to tourism since 1992.
Whilst much of the plain is still inaccessible to tourism due to unexploded ordnance (from the tens of thousands of bombs of the "Secret War"of the USA's CIA against North Vietnam's use of Laos to deliver its military machine into South Vietnam).

The ongoing clearance program which may take another 90 years to see through, is continuing as scholars and tourists, and locals alike, go about their daily routines to help recover the knowledge and history of these massive testaments to human, endeavour , ingenuity and survival in the face of adversity and pain. over the eons.

Visit if you can, immerse, and contribute.

The Plain of Jars is there waiting for you.

As you watch this video, listen to the words of Michael McDonald's song, "The Plain of Jars" - it is moving and links into the awe of the place.

Kasai Underground Bicycle Parking - Edogawa-ku - 2

A sensible solution to Bicycle parking for Commuters - in Tokyo it costs less than $1AU ( about 97Yen) per day to use this Underground automated bike storage system set up in Edogawa-ku. Place your bike on the entry guide, swipe your card, the bike is sent below to an automated storage level, on return, swipe your card, the bike returns from its rack below by the elevator in 22 seconds. Neat Quick Secure

Kickstand Cyclery - The LBS for Daily Velo Zen

Yehuda Moon refreshingly delivers the daily dose of sense and contact we can share with the noble bicycle. Whilst locally we could all do with an LBS like Kickstand Cyclery, we do have one here. Support Yehuda, like Ferris Bueller, they don't come along often, but when they do, they deserve an audience.

Thanks Rick West/Yehudamoon.com & comicsbyyehudamoon.com and your fine friend Yehuda .

Awareness Test

Awareness Test - Watch more free videos

Terminology Folly

Thank you Copenhagen Cycle Chic, a neat summary for those who have issues about people who ride a bicycle.

Demystifying the terminology for drivers and shedding some real light on the elegance and reason why it makes sense to ride a bike, Terminology Folly is a must read.

The sister blog here, adds to the view with stats and facts and behind the scenes of riding a bike.

Ride a bike more and drive a car less often, the view from a bike can be fantastic.

Vale "Captain Bike"

World's most famous bike mechanic Sheldon Brown has passed away.

Sheldon Brown died last night of a massive heart attack.

News is up carried on the Harris Cyclery web site , where he had worked.

His bike tech pages on the shop website are some of the bike world's most visited pages, linked from thousands of websites.

Sheldon will be sadly missed.

Xavier Rudd / Better People

Heed the message... better people...good to do !

Australia Week 08 (Sam Kekovich)

Love it... serve lamb, serve flathead, serve beer, serve prawns, serve whiting...serve it up

NEW INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION SPOTLIGHTS ETHICS TO INCREASE CYCLING

Embracing ethics as the means for increasing bicycling
around the world, a new international organization, One Street, is
cultivating novel ground for the bicycle advocacy movement.

Through One Street's on-call support and web site, leaders learn how to present bicycling as a top solution for climate change, health crises, oil wars and deadly street designs that threaten people around the world.

Ethical management is blended with coaching and resources for campaign planning and communications.

These basic services are free to any leader of any
organization working to increase bicycling
- non-profit, for-profit, government, local, state, national and international. One Street's website offers free resources on ethics and management as well as common bicycling issues:

Trexlertown Velodrome 1993. Stephen Pate Crash

Awesome racing at Lehigh, (watch this You Tube Video) stay with it till the final race is a show of guts and determination to not let the bastards beat you.
Track racing is awesome, try it, may cost you a bit of skin now and then, but the introduction to fear, elation, exhilaration, tactics, working with others and a shared cameraderie and building a huge appetite for pizza is living. It is often said cycling is the metphor for life... on the track that is too true!...

Brake on Clearway

The long awaited Bayside link to the existing Beach Rd early morn weekend clearway is on hold AGAIN!, Bayside leader reports that at last week's special meeting, Bayside councillors voted 5-2 to reject the proposal (and gave no reasons- and hid behind
Section 89(2) of the Local Government Act 1989 in a closed meeting - and it is dubious that s89(2) had any real bearing on any matter for discussion other than they could use it to to conceal and someone's dubious anti cycling agenda).

This resolution is contrary to the strong support by the Consultative committee review panel to Council, their report is here in this agenda note from Council. It appears to have been totally ignored by this committee resolution to not have a trial. So much for experts and wider views. The trial was a strong necessity and widely supported by the community and the review panel.

It was a proposal for a trial. A sensible trial, to link up with Kingston and Port Phillip to make Beach Road safer for weekend early morning riders by removing parked cars in the left lane and lowering the need for riders to ride into the right lane and slow vehicles. Made pure common sense, when the numbers on the road riding approach 8, 000 in summer weekend mornings. But the Council fathers in their wisdom have pandered to their own parochialism and 20 or so locals who have moaned about having to move their spare SUV's and Boat trailers and construction trucks building new mansions off Beach Rd on weekends for 4 hours a day from 6am to 10am... poor bubbies. The local press hasnt helped by running a very negative campaign over the last year especially ignited by the death of James Gould( here is my comment on that death and the Coroners findings). However sad that was, it was avoidable and if anything lent massive weight to the need for greater safety on this the busiest cyling boulevarde in Melbourne , if not Australia on every weekend of the year.

Again the Leader headline didnt help with Anya Murray's (9th Oct) headline , another sensational grab of "Cyclists Demand" & "Weekend Clearway" etc), no the cyclists havnt demanded , they are making a positive suggestion for a trial, and, No, they dont want a weekend clearway, just a few hours each Sat and Sunday to assist the peak load and improve safety.

The sooner a trial is conducted the sooner sense will descend upon this situation. I feel the Council is scared it will be a runaway success and lead to massive attraction beyond the huge numbers we see on Beach Rd now, perhaps a case of too much success for local businesses means those councillors will lose their influence from their wealthy property developer friends and the rest of the locals will actually get better road conditions, safer roads, better lifestyle and a healthy respect for sharing the road for all moving traffic not the parked spare SUVs, boat trailers and building container obstructions that are the current danger.

THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT TAKES A STAND -- AGAINST CARS, FOR BIKES

THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT TAKES A STAND -- AGAINST CARS, FOR BIKES (from our friends across the ditch at CAN)
22 September 2007-

Dutch government has taken a trend to promote
eco-friendly cities a step further than its European neighbors by
announcing firm measures to discourage cars and driving.
The plan was outlined in the 2008 budget presented this week, and the
capital Amsterdam -- a leader in the drive -- and other Dutch cities
will use a "no car" day on Sunday, an annual event, to press home the
message.
In the traditional speech from the throne read out by Queen Beatrix, the
centre-left cabinet said it would raise taxes on diesel fuel and
vehicles using it. Laws are also being drawn up to make taxes dependent
on how much pollution a vehicle emits: the more polluting, the higher
the fee.
Unhappy, the Dutch car industry association RAi is trying to rally car
owners to protest plans, which are sure to have majority support in the
country's coalition system. RAi says the government measures will cost
drivers 500 million euros (700 million dollars) more per year.
But a number of cities, like Amsterdam, want even stricter action
against cars. Among these are Eindhoven, The Hague and Leiden which have
ignored drivers' complaints and joined Sunday's "no car" day.
On Sunday, streets inside the ring road that circles Amsterdam will be
closed for incoming cars and open only to cyclists and pedestrians
between 9 am and 5 pm (0700 GMT to 1500 GMT).
The capital hopes to show out-of-towners that they can leave their cars
outside the city and travel in via public transport or taxis, which will
still be running Sunday.
Amsterdam, where half the residents do not even have a car, is also
hatching other plans to clean up the air and unblock congested roads,
including a tax on sports utility vehicles (SUVs), Jeeps and other big
cars that run on diesel fuel.
Parking meters will be connected to vehicle tax records and drivers will
have to punch in their license plate numbers. The price of a space will
be calculated on how much pollution the car creates.
"The technology is available," Tjeerd Herrema, an Amsterdam city council
member in charge of transport, told the Het Parool daily. He wants to
introduce the system in the course of next year.
To back the measures, Amsterdam will build large car parks inside the
city for residents and just outside the ring road for visitors, linked
to the city's "park-and-ride" public transport system. Plans call for
doubling spaces in the outside lots to 2,300. At the moment, visitors
pay 5.50 euros per day to park and get two free public transport
tickets, which the municipality wants to increase to five per car.
Inside Amsterdam it now costs 3.90 euros an hour to park in the city
centre from 7 am to midnight everyday, except Sunday morning during
church service hours, but prices are set to go up.
The city also wants to improve public transport and increase the number
of green spaces in the centre, and Herrema is pushing for trams and
buses -- which now stop around 1 am -- to run all night.
The move to go "greener" has seen several European cities like Paris and
Lyons in France, Barcelona, Geneva, Oslo, Stockholm and Vienna stock the
streets with city-owned bicycles for cheap rental -- a step behind
bike-friendly Netherlands which pioneered the idea of bicycle sharing in
the late 1960s.
But Amsterdam has not forgotten its numerous cyclists, who are almost as
much of a tourist attraction as the 17th-century canal houses. The city
is setting aside 70 million euros for the capital's bicycle riders over
the next four years to pay for improving bike lanes, creating more
bicycle parking spaces and cracking down on bicycle theft.


Across the Atlantic, it seems NYC is getting the message, they had lots of studies into the opportunities and plenty of clashes and evidence on Video of it and positive direction comments like this, and now finally mayor Bloomberg is taking some refreshing steps for the Big Apple, as reported here.



Meanwhile closer to home our urban areas in the expanding city catchment of Melbourne are doing scant little to help things as Crowlie so succinctly puts it here!
Seems the local Melton Council thinks bikes are just for fun, that they are not worthy of inclusion in Council plans in any other way as legitimate transport choice, and thus ignores providing for cycling in its transport infrastructure plans in any thing other than a token way.



There is a myth, (debunked here) that bicycles are toys, and we grow out of them and drive vehicles for transport. This is rapidly being overcome by National governments like the dutch and major city governments, like NYC and in some ways Melbourne, but at a rural and smaller urban centre local government level, it is too often re-inforced because of small minds, closed attitudes and other personal agendas that just might mean someone has to take responsibility for spending some money or making a decision that may offend a few red-necked supporters.


It's about time some small minds woke up and took a whiff for the smell of the roses that could exist in the lives of people they claim to serve, not the exhaust fumes and angst they subject too many of those same people to now!

The A, B, Cs of Health-How to Boost the Riding-Health Cycle

(Or, how to make the best of life's opportunities when the certainties of taxes and death are inevitable... )
Governments and Commerce don't seem to want to let go of their drive for profits and taxes, as they mean bigger business and bigger government.

So before they get too far ahead of themselves, (and the world just might take it all back and say sorry mankind you stuffed up ), we can say, meanwhile think about this...
Pharmaceuticals dont want to cure, they just want to "manage", Food producers dont want to produce traditionally healthy food for humans, they just want to maximise profit from poor substitutes that deliver huge profits from Human Interferred foods, (Bleached Wheat, GM modified, Highly refined Sugar, chemically extracted oils etc) , the lazy just want a pill to cure their obesity because Pharmaceuticals have one to exploit that!

Well we can do something about it, its called healthy choice.
Making healthy choices is expounded by many, but heeded only by those who have got the message, for the other's, well good luck.

Many of us have been sold the line that all can be cured by a pill. But really, that's a cop out if there ever was one. Pharmaceuticals have their place when life is seriously threatened in a triage sense, otherwise, we can do a lot more for ourselves, our planet and our future if we choose wisely when we have the ability to do so.
We can choose not to buy or consume Human Interferred Food, we can choose not to smoke, we can choose not to have dangerous sex, and we can choose to excercise.
I saw an excellent summary on how healthy excercise and food can combine to ensure the ABC's of life are maximised for our benefit.
It is Health: How to boost the riding-health cycle By Joe Beer - Check it out.
He talks about the building blocks of overall physical and mental outcomes, and that they build on each other. You need health to have fitness and you need fitness to have performance, simple as ABC. Bit what ABC's do you say?

The ABC's mentioned are, Absenteeism, Brain health and Coupling!
Whoah you say, WTF?, yep

A- Absenteeism, companies and employees alike benefit from a healthy work force... simple forget exploitation for profit, have healthier people working for you, they are happier, miss fewer days, your enterpise benefits in better productivity from absentee minimalisation and on-the-job application is maximised. Riding a bike is a way to achieve the ABC's of health , and great benefit to employees and employeers from raised fitness levels reduced absenteeism and it gives a dollar payback to companies on investment in bicycle facillities for employees.

B- Brain Health, it goes like this - 'anima sana in corpore sano' - that is, a healthy mind in a healthy body . The brain needs excercise, if you ride your bike, it will get both physical and mental excercise. Simplistic in itself, research establishes as fitness levels increase depression and mental illness reduce.

C- Coupling, ahem, ie couples who ride bikes are fitter and it is reflected in their relationship. Well one of the additional benefits of cycling is the tendency of it to help your spouse or partner also to become more active. Data shows that highly active older men are three times more likely to have a similarly active spouse. Married men and women tend to exercise more than those who are single. It is unclear if this phenomenon also applies to younger age groups, but a person who regularly makes time for exercise may show those around them how easily it can be dovetailed into the day (and night!).

Riding can make you a better worker, improve your mood and help to encourage those around you.

Get out and ride today - it does you and those around you a lot of good.

BENCHMARKING REPORT-Correlation- Cities with High rates of walking cycling and excercise have lowest rates of Obesity, Diabetes,& High Blood Pressure.

THUNDERHEAD ALLIANCE RELEASES FIRST BENCHMARKING REPORT

6 September 2007- Bicycling and Walking in the U.S., the Thunderhead
Alliance's first biennial Benchmarking Report released August 29th, clearly links the decline in bicycling and walking and the surge in numbers of adults and children who are obese. The report was released to Thunderhead's network of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations and government officials throughout the country.

The report compares, for the first time ever, bicycling and walking
levels, investment in bicycling and walking, and public health. The
findings reveal major disparities between cycling and walking levels,
traffic fatalities, and federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

"Most public health advocates already preach the benefits of biking and
walking," said Sue Knaup, Thunderhead's executive director. "This report
clearly demonstrates that cities and states with the highest rates of
cycling and walking almost always have the lowest levels of obesity,
high blood pressure, and diabetes."

Knaup also noted that the data contained within the report can be very
useful for advocates working at local and regional levels. "If you've
ever stuttered when an official demanded data to back up your claims, or
wished for state-by-state data at your fingertips, the Benchmarking
Report delivers," she said.

The report provides detailed data and illustrations on bicycling and
walking in 50 states and the 50 most-populous cities. Measurements
include bicycle and pedestrian staffing, funding, written policies, and
bike-transit integration, among others.

Thunderhead has released the biennial Benchmarking Report along with a
template press release that can be modified for use at the local level.
To download the report visit:

For more information about Bicycling and Walking in the U.S., contact:
, or call 415-513-5281.

[from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the U.S. National Center for
Bicycling & Walking]